Rosario Dawson is the latest celebrity investor in an app that provides months of free cocktails

Celebrities have a long history of
endorsing their favorite booze, from high-end
tequila
to Campari.

Now it's an app for booze that's drawing the star power, and the
celebrities are supporting the app with their own money.

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Hooch, a subscription-based
app that gets you one "free" drink every day of the month with a
$9.99 monthly subscription fee, is amassing a collection of
celebrity backers, with Rosario Dawson becoming the latest
investor.

Dawson was among the investors that pitched in on Hooch's
$5 million funding round that closed last week, according to a
company spokesperson. Other investors in the round
FJ Labs, Blue Scorpion Investments, and Revelis
Capital.

Dawson, who starred Men in Black II and Eagle Eye, joins a
list of celebrity investors in Hooch that already includes
Shaun White and Russel Simmons.

A drink a day

The Hooch app is basically MoviePass
but for drinking. Members sign up and can redeem a drink every
day of the month in ten different cities and 450 venues around
the globe.

Dawson was first introduced to the app at a charity event Hooch
sponsored for CureBatten.org. Her and actor
Scott Eastwood donned Hooch branded Santa hats, got behind the
bar and started serving up free drinks on Hooch to everyone
there. The next year, after a reintroduction from VC Blue
Scorpion, the pair partnered up on the store launch of her
fashion brand, Studio One Eighty Nine. Not long after, Blue
Scorpion recommended she invest herself.

If you've ever bought a drink in a major city you know
that the $9.99 membership fee is a steal. So how does Hooch makes
money? It's unclear, but it looks like the app is basically
acting as a free promo service for bars. Customers are motivated
to come in to get their "free" drink and end up staying and
raking up tabs. In 2016, CEO Lin Dai told
TechCrunch that members spent an average of $30-$40 at Hooch
partner venues after getting their first free-ish drink.
They also are scoring a lot of valuable data on their
members, like what times of day are most popular for drinking in
different cities, and purchasing trends of certain beverages.

Founded in 2014, Hooch has raised a total of $2.7 million so far.
Cofounder Aleksey Kernes
came up with the idea while working as a doorman for NYC's
Hotel Chantelle and watching people react to their free welcome
drink. Everyone loves feeling like they are the savviest consumer
in the room, scoring "freebies" for their smarts.

Bar hopping enthusiasts shouldn't get too excited however - after
redeeming your one drink of the day you have to wait until the
next day to get another drink on Hooch, and you can't just move
to another partner bar for your second round.